Ignoring Responsibility of Minister

Ministry of Defense released the result of special defense investigation on preservation of a diary of peace-keeping operation in South Sudan last year. Right after explaining what the investigation had found in the press conference, Minister of Defense, Tomomi Inada, announced her resignation. However, the investigation refused stepping into responsibility of Inada on the handling of the diary.

The investigation was operated by Headquarters on Defense Investigation, which was a section in the Ministry directly supervised by Minister of Defense. The report revealed that an advice of Vice-Commander of Central Readiness Force in Ground Self-defense Force, which dismissed the diary as an executive document, caused the decision of not disclosing the diary, turning down the request of disclosure by a journalist last July.

Data of the diary was found in Joint Staff Office and disclosed February 7^th. The investigation found that Administrative Vice-minister of Defense, Tetsuro Kuroe, told GSDF Chief of Staff, Toshiya Okabe, a decision of not disclosing the data found in GSDF on February 16^th. Kuroe and Okabe briefed Inada about the treatment of the diary on February 13^th and 15^th. The investigation did not recognize any decision or approval by Inada on not disclosing the diary. “It is undeniable that there has possibly been a kind of reference,” concluded the investigation.

It has already reported that Inada did not order the disclosure of diary even after she realized the existence in her organization, causing sharp accusation of not implementing her argument in the Diet for openness of information or not exercising civilian control on military organization. Fuji Television scooped that Inada was wondering how she should explain about it after the briefing on February 13^th, based on a memo of an officer in Ministry of Defense. She did not care about civilian control, but about how to deal with criticism on her.

The reason of Inada’s resignation as Minister of Defense was not about concealing the diary, but about causing public confusion on the operation in the Ministry. Inada has told in the Diet that she did not received any report on the diary and promised her effort for removing any behavior of concealing inconvenient facts. False statement of the Minister actually matters.

It was fundamentally inappropriate that internal investigation team was investigating internal problems. It was impossible for an organization directly controlled by the Minister to deal with responsibility of the Minister. Shinzo Abe administration refused handing the investigation to a third-party. As seen in Kake Gauen scandal, Abe administration is weak in explaining what is going on in the background.